There is a nagging belief for some that somehow Corday and NBC ruined James Reilly's great story, and if only he'd gotten to do it the way he wanted all the numerous beloved characters' brutal, tacky deaths would have been totally worth it and the payoff would've been great.

I do not believe that at all. I watched the show during the original SSK story. It was awful IMHO, from start to pitiful finish. The writing was awful. I thought most of the acting was awful as a result. The murders were what Reilly does - tacky, exploitive "movie ripoff" and jokey "ironic" deaths, usually very gory and laden with cheesy Karo syrup. Almost no single clue ever panned out or meant anything, and it was all an excuse for him to fall back on his oldest trick - use the character of Marlena and the talent of Deidre Hall as not a woman, not a mature female character, but some kind of crazy movie monster/camp mascot who can do anything, anywhere and always be forgiven.

The resulting rewrite was awful because the original story was awful and the writer was awful, if you ask me. There was no way that story, as written, with those deaths, was ever going to be some unseen masterpiece "if not for the executives." The truth is James Reilly's gimmick died a long time ago.

Excellent post, Vee. The SSK was like every other dreadful gimmick Reilly attempted. He had no interest in telling a coherent story with a beginning, middle and end. It was about extracting as much shock value as possible from each death in the hope that this would conceal how bad the story actually was. It worked for a while but viewers eventually wised up. The ratings had already started to nose-dive by March of 04 (well before the dead were brought back). We probably will never know for sure whether the original plan was to resurrect everyone. But if that hadn't happened, Reilly would have just come up with another ludicrous "out" for Marlena. Much as he might like to deflect the blame to Corday, he had written himself into a corner.

I don't think Corday had anything to do with messing up JER's story, especially the SSK. JER re wrote it after the ratings started to drop fast, especially after they killed Alice. And I think he didn't just rewrite the SSK death's, but Victor's too, because I think people were angry how they just had some woman who had just been some poor model at one time and a highschool girl that was crazy about a man be the ones who killed Victor. I loved Jan and Nicole very, very much but I just didn't think it was right to give the great Victor Kiriakis a death at the hands of those two, I mean it just wasn't right.

I also think Marlena was not orignally meant to be the serial killer, someone, I think DrewH said that Hattie was probably meant to be the killer, which I believe. Deidre Hall even mentioned in a special on SoapNet a few years back that she was suprised that it was actually Marlena and not a evil twin (Sam) or a double(Hattie).

JER does have talent, hes ceative, he just kant write diuolge or scenens

JERk isn't talented, and given the chance he'd rewrite Maggie's memorable alcoholism storyline with her being addicted to midget porn.

Oh I completely know what you're saying, but the fact that he's even allowed to have an Emmy on his mantle is a travesty. I'm surprised it hasn't melted yet.